in each separate dying ember
by Mia-Zeklos
Summary: "Stay with me. He'd repeated it so many times, had begged Alec not to leave him and in one way or another, he had listened."


**Notes: Inspired by a myth I read about lost souls who sometimes remained in this plane of existence in the form of ravens when they had a reason to. It was just an innocent concept and it ended up... like this.**

 **References:**  
 **1\. The poem cited at the beginning is called _The Mark._**  
 **2\. Valentine did canonically have two ravens named that way. Hugin and Munin were also Odin's ravens in Norse mythology, hence the God complex comment.**  
 **3\. The title of the fic is, inevitably, from Edgar Allan Poe's _The Raven_.**  
 **With that being said - I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to know what you think**!

 _Come back to me...  
even as a ghost, even as a shadow,  
a raven at my door, a scar upon my body -  
for it is in my trembling, shrinking heart,  
_ _I hold the things we thought we lost._  
\- Segovia Amil

The funeral was held in the courtyard. Jace had insisted on it without having a solid idea as to _why_ he'd thought that it was such a good plan, but he was glad that he had stood his ground now that he could see the shimmering trail of Alec's soul breaking up into stars above him. It was a painful sight, but also one he had needed – his parabatai was still in this world, in some shape or form. He wasn't _gone_. Jace couldn't reach him, but he also hadn't lost him completely, and that was as good as it would ever get from now on.

God, he was so _tired_. When he'd thought about living through this before, when he'd gone through the darkest, most fearful moments of his life, Jace hadn't expected to feel that way. He had expected anger and grief and devastation and they were there to some degree, but he was mostly just tired. Tired of pretending that he wasn't in pain, tired of keeping it together, tired of forcing himself to do anything apart from what he really wanted – to lie down on that pyre, close his eyes and never open them again; to follow Alec into whatever next state they were supposed to be granted after their death. He had heard of it happening in the past – way back when parabatai had also been allowed to be lovers and when it had been _acceptable_ to throw your life away because the life in question was over anyway.

He couldn't do any of that, of course. He had meetings to attend, decisions to make and an Inquisitor to talk to. He already knew what she would tell him and that made him want to avoid her all the more. He didn't want to hear it and over the last few days, Jace had become rather good at pretending that the things he didn't want to handle didn't exist.

And yet, here he was. He knew that he would have never forgiven himself if he hadn't attended the ceremony, but now that he was here, it only felt like an additional insult. _We are dust and shadows_. That was all he had been left with, a body that they were supposed to burn now that the ritual was over. Everyone had stepped away to let him say goodbye – the thought of a parabatai pair being torn apart so violently was more than a little disturbing to anyone who knew the first thing about the way the bond worked – and he didn't know what they expected him to _do_. He had said his goodbyes already, back in the last battle of Alec's life. He'd felt every strand of Alec's soul detach itself from him the moment his heart had stopped beating. What was he supposed to say goodbye to? There was nothing _left_.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a sharp croak; the sound far too close for comfort and enough to make him look up and find its source.

The raven had perched right on the edge of the pyre, blinking up at Jace as it called out again. It hadn't been there a minute ago and he hadn't heard it arrive, even if it made an unbelievable amount of noise now that it was here. Trying to chase it off was fruitless, as it turned out, and Jace gave up eventually and just glared at the bird, a part of him grateful for the irritation that it had brought with itself.

His father had had two ravens. He'd called them Hugin and Munin, Jace remembered, and he'd used them to bring him messages. Their presence had made Jace curious and he'd read as much about them as he could find in the dusty mythology textbooks in his father's library. He remembered one of them saying that they were messengers from another world who followed armies on their way to the battlefield to take their souls to the afterlife. He seriously doubted it now, often fifteen years later, but, "Is that what you're here for? His soul?" There was no one around, thankfully, or they would have assumed that he had finally lost it. It was very likely that they would have been right, but Jace didn't particularly mind. He stroked the bird's head gently and closed his eyes when his vision grew foggy. "I don't have it anymore, sorry."

He had never said it out loud before, Jace suddenly realised. He knew it to be a fact: his parabatai rune was nothing but a faint outline now and the all-consuming _loneliness_ inside him had been present ever since the day he'd lost Alec, but he hadn't actually said it. The words stung in his mouth now, made bile rise in his throat until the fragile control he'd had over himself started crumbling all over again and this time, Jace didn't fight it.

"Go!" he shouted instead, only getting more agitated when the raven stared at him with an all too familiar stubborn expression before flying away. Jace didn't pay any more attention to it and turned his focus on the torch he'd been left with instead. He had a pyre to light on fire.

* * *

 _"How bad can it be, really?" Jace mused as he looked over the report that the team from last night had left on Alec's desk. "_ Inter-dimensional crack spitting out demons _bad?_

 _"I don't think so," Alec said. He'd been trying to assemble a team for this mission since he'd woken up this morning and it showed – he stifled a yawn as he reached for the rest of the information they'd been provided with and stared at it with the concentration of a man who had stopped making sense of the words hours ago. "But it's definitely a weak spot. We have no idea what could happen."_

 _"We can handle it." He couldn't be completely sure, of course, but it was about as far as encouragement went where Shadowhunters were concerned._

 _The sudden spike in demonic activity in one specific part of the city was worrisome to say the least and it bothered everyone in the Institute more than they liked to admit. As it was, the news of the latest failure of their efforts to contain the situation had ruined an otherwise perfectly good day: the sun was streaking through the stained glass of the office windows, they'd woken up together this morning and, now that they'd locked the door, Jace had made himself comfortable on Alec's lap so that they could look through the evidence togethe_ _r._

 _It looked bad. He had to admit that much, no matter what he had said to Alec and he was sure that Alec himself knew it, but what would they change by speaking of it? They had gone over the details a hundred times by now and there was nothing left to do but make their move._

 _"I just don't want to overdo it." Alec rubbed a hand over his eyes and found it in himself to smile when Jace leant in and kissed his cheek. It was a simple gesture, but the fact that they could afford even that much was still something neither of them could get enough of._

 _"You'll find a way, like you always do," he said in an additional attempt at reassurance. "_ We _will. And hey, if it goes wrong, you can always say that we discussed it together and blame it on me."_

 _Alec's laugh, rueful as it was, was the biggest reward Jace could have asked for._

* * *

Jace was in the middle of yet another one of those dreams – the demon's stinger sinking into Alec's neck, Jace reaching for him and his parabatai falling, falling until he wasn't sure which one of them was dying anymore – when he was startled awake.

He couldn't make sense of what he was seeing at first. It was still night outside and there seemed to be a storm, but there was something – dark and misshapen – right outside his window. Jace blinked several times, trying to shake off the dream-like state he was in, and dragged himself from under the cover to pull the window open. The demonic activity had been increasing and he wouldn't have been too surprised if they'd managed to breach the Institute wards by now, but he didn't _care_. He was far too exhausted to deal with this in his sleep as well.

He stepped away the moment the window swung open and something between exasperation and disappointment swelled up in him when he saw the intruder. _All the stories are true_ , he reminded himself. Maybe this did have something to do with him and Alec; maybe, despite the fact that he couldn't feel him any longer, some small fraction of his parabatai's soul had stayed and had drawn whatever creature hid under this disguise in.

"You again." He had no doubt that it was the same raven he had seen at the funeral – its eyes, far too intelligent for his liking, were boring into him with the same sharp intensity and after a lifetime of being a Shadowhunter, he had seen far stranger things than that – and even if it wasn't actually a raven, it was what it had chosen to present itself as. "I told you to leave me alone. I can't help you. No, no, shh," he hissed when it started croaking back at him as if it had understood him. It wasn't that farfetched – Valentine had taught his ravens to talk, he remembered – but it still wasn't something he wanted to think about and the first thing that came to mind was trying to chase it away again. Instead, he stood there and watched it helplessly as it flew around the room and landed on top of the piano.

Jace's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't played since the night of Alec's death when he had done it until his fingers had bled and to top that off, he had _work_ to do tomorrow. He didn't need this, but it seemed to be the only choice – if it would keep the stupid bird quiet, absurd as that idea was, then there was nothing he could do. The room next to his was empty – it was Alec's and no one would go in there, not as long as he had any say in it – but he wasn't alone on this floor, not by a long shot, and most people would accept his oddities more easily if they involved playing the piano instead of having an argument with a raven.

Jace sighed and took his place in front of the instrument. The first few notes were a painful, abrupt shock in the ringing silence of the room, but they had the desired effect – the raven fell silent as soon as a melody started shaping up. It felt _good_ even if Jace didn't want to admit it, to be capable of creating anything at all once again and apparently his audience agreed. He heard the fluttering of wings and then there was a weight on his shoulder and the warmth of feathers against his cheek until he felt like crying.

 _Stupid bird_ , Jace thought again and this time, there was an edge of gratitude to the words.

* * *

 _The fight was over for now. During the war and all the trouble that had followed it in its tail, it had become something of a routine: they counted their death and brought the wounded back to the Institute, but there had always been nothing but a distant sadness to the process. Jace had never truly known any of the fallen soldiers all that well and he'd accepted it as inevitable. It had always been like this and nothing was really different this time and yet, everything had turned upside down now._

 _"Stay with me," Jace whispered frantically as he activated Alec's iratze, the stele shaking in his hand. Nothing seemed to be enough – not his enhanced abilities reaching out to help, not the healing rune or even_ their _rune – but he kept going. It was the only thing left to do. "Everything's going to be fine, you'll be okay."_

 _"Jace." He sounded so weak. Jace had never heard his voice like this and he never wanted to again. "There's no point—"_

 _"Don't speak," Jace said and pressed his fingers against the wound. Blood and demon poison soaked his fingers and it was_ terrifying _; the helplessness that went hand in hand with the horror. "It's all right, just stay with me."_

 _It was more of a mantra than actual hope, he knew, the words jumbled and meaningless as he begged in front of Alec and every deity imaginable to fix this somehow. It was of no use – their bond trembled between them, more fragile and stronger than it had ever been all at once, and Jace clung onto it with everything he had._

 _"I will," Alec said suddenly. He raised a hand and braced it against Jace's shoulder and despite the effort, he found the strength to speak again. The promise was so_ confident _that Jace felt like he had no choice but to believe him; the truth of it ringing in the space between their souls. "I'm not going anywhere, parabatai."_

* * *

The office was always so _quiet_ these days. Back when it had been Alec's office and Jace had been just a guest, there to keep him company and offer help if Alec asked him to, the place had been dominated by thing he associated with his parabatai's work – the scratch of his pen over the endless paperwork he had to deal with, the clicking of his keyboard, the thud of his heavy boots as he paced around the room when he was focused on finding a solution. Slowly, it had become as comfortable to Jace as his own room and this – how cold and empty and quiet it was right now – felt like nothing but another mockery. He'd expected his grandmother to practically hand him the position of Head of the Institute and he'd been accepted well enough after years of being Alec's right hand, but that didn't make the job any less painful.

Well, at least he wasn't all alone anymore, although Jace wasn't sure that he could call the new development an improvement. The raven didn't get in the way of his work, but it didn't just stay in his room either and it seemed to like being here. Jace had tried to figure out some kind of pattern to its actions, but he'd failed: it didn't just follow him around but roamed around the Institute however it pleased instead and aside from Jace, it had only ever shown any kind of tolerance towards Isabelle. Even _trying_ to think about the implications behind that gave Jace a headache and so he opted not to think about it at all. He just let the bird do as it pleased and tried to not pay too much attention to it. It wasn't easy, especially since it tended to go where he went more often than not. On one memorable occasion, it had clawed out the eyes of a demon that had tried to attack him from the back and since then, no one had questioned its presence. Jace was thankful – he had grown tired of being asked questions he had no answers for.

He generally preferred it when people left him alone, really, and that was one of the few upsides to his change of position in the Institute – no one dared to bother him unless it was really important and no matter how often Clary insisted on telling him that his _fixations_ wouldn't help him in the long run, that he was being stubborn and that _surely_ mundane psychologists weren't as useless as he thought them to be, he had no intention of changing that. His body and soul _ached_ and he knew full well that there was no one who could help him – no one apart from the local necromancers, that was, and while Jace wasn't sure that he wasn't desperate enough to try it, the knowledge that Alec would have never wanted anything of the sort held him back.

The already familiar – if still infuriating – sound of the raven's croak brought his attention back to the statistics on the screen in front of him.

"Give me a break," he muttered. "What do you know about running an Institute?" The only answer was silence and two unblinking eyes fixed on the list of places where the demonic activity had increased. It was almost as if— _No_. He was _not_ discussing strategy with a bird, no matter how clever it had proven to be so far. Jace turned away resolutely and resumed his earlier inspection.

At this point, even the inter-dimensional crack spitting out demons wasn't an option they could rule out with absolute certainty and Jace was constantly on the verge of asking for outside help – from someone more _powerful_ than most Shadowhunters, like the Iron Sisters, for example – and right now, it was only his pride that stopped him from doing just that.

"What?" Jace snapped when the raven took off again, this time choosing one of the cabinets in the corner for its new spot. "What is it now? There's nothing there."

He'd taken to having conversations with it, eventually. It seemed to understand ever word and, troublesome as that was, it was also the least tiring method of communication he'd found over the last couple of months. He hadn't named it yet – he didn't have enough of his father's God complex to follow his example and nothing else even remotely appropriate came to mind – and he had tried to pretend that that made it unimportant. He hadn't been too successful.

Now, Jace didn't even think twice before getting up and looking through the numerous keys scattered on top of Alec's – _his_ – desk until he found two possible matches.

The dust inside the cabinet swirled in the early morning light as Jace wrestled the creaking door open. The large heaps of paper that fell at his feet caused even more of it and he stifled a cough into his sleeve as he took in the sight that welcomed him there.

"Maps," he said, mostly to himself, as he picked one up. They encompassed all of New York, it seemed, and Alec's familiar handwriting covered most of the surface along with several lines connecting the major spots of demonic activity in the recent past.

No one but he and Alec had known that these things were even _there_ and he'd forgotten – or had preferred to forget, he wasn't sure – all about them after his death. It had been easier to dive into work and to associate as little of it as possible with his parabatai, because there would be no way he could do it efficiently otherwise.

They'd worked on these maps in some of the last days of Alec's life. They hadn't been too sure of the accuracy that they'd managed to achieve with them, so they hadn't shown them to anyone else, but they _had_ been onto something, he was sure of it, and _they had been the only people to know about it_.

 _All the stories are true_. It wasn't his only justification for thinking that there was something out of place about his raven, not anymore, but it was still something to hang on to; more than he'd had when it had first appeared.

It wasn't after Alec's soul. That was yet another thought that Jace wasn't too eager to face, but he had tried to keep it at bay long enough. If it had been just that, it would have left after the funeral. No, it had to be something else. There was only one option he could make sense of, Jace realised, and he looked up from the map and extended his arm out towards the raven, the movement as hopeful as it was tentative. It responded by climbing up on his shoulder, as it had developed the habit of doing recently, and Jace reached back to stroke over the shiny surface of its feathers, feeling his eyes well up with the tears he'd somehow managed to hold back until now.

 _Stay with me_. He'd repeated it so many times, had _begged_ Alec not to leave him and in one way or another, he had _listened_. Whatever this bird really was, it held a part of his parabatai's soul – a big enough part for him to remember everyone and everything here, and to try and show Jace the things he couldn't figure out by himself. _Of course_. He still considered the wellbeing of the Institute his responsibility, Jace supposed, and that was why he was spending so much time here of all places. It shouldn't have made sense but it _did_ and the knowledge was all-consuming; so much so that Jace could already tell that nothing would ever be the same again.

"Thank you," he said and kissed the raven's head and, for the first time since _that_ night, the worst night in his life, the world felt a fraction less empty.

* * *

 _Jace shoved the next to heaps of notes – this time about the timetable of the shifts they gave to the guards at the front entrance – into the desk with a little more force than strictly necessary. He could still feel the Inquisitor's presence in the room and he knew that she wasn't leaving anytime soon, but going about his work still seemed to be the best course of action._

 _Of course, she wouldn't stand to be ignored for long. "I hope you understand what this means."_

Alec is dead. This is all this means. _"Yes."_

 _"I understand that this is— a traumatic experience for you, and that it must be devastating." Why did everyone insist on saying that? Jace still hadn't managed to find an answer, no matter how many times he had been told 'I know how you feel'._ No one _knew, and Jace knew that it was just words – it was what people always said in these cases – but it still got more aggravating every single time._

 _Not intimidated by his silence, the Inquisitor soldiered on. "You have to realise that the New York Institute needs a leader. I doubt that Isabelle Lightwood would be up for the job, which leaves us with only one option—"_

 _"I don't_ care _about the New York Institute," Jace snapped. It wasn't her fault – it was no one's fault – but couldn't she see? She was in charge of authorising the parabatai ceremonies, after all, couldn't she understand? "I know what you want me to do, Madam Inquisitor, and I'm saying yes only because it's what he wanted."_

 _Or at least, that's what the Clave's file on the matter said. Alec had never mentioned anything in front of him, but then again, there was no easy way to bring up the fact that he had planned everything to the last detail in case he died in the way of work. Ever since they'd got together, they had tried to make the most of every single moment together and Jace wouldn't have traded it for the world, painful as the memory was right now. The overwhelming solitude in his soul only seemed to stretch out a little more whenever he as much as thought of his parabatai and of course, it had been bound to end in tragedy because it always did for Nephilim, but he had just wanted— He wasn't sure. Time. He'd wanted a little more time._

 _"It doesn't matter why," the Inquisitor said and, despite the irritation in her voice, she seemed pleased. "Just do it. Someone needs to sort this out. And—" She faltered for a moment. "And be careful. Don't make any rash decisions."_ Like everyone's already expecting you to _. She didn't say it, but she didn't need to: few parabatai lived long after their other half had died. They rarely saw the point and the more time Jace spent in this state, somewhere between desperate disbelief and endless grief, the less he felt like he could blame them._

 _Still, the Inquisitor didn't say anything more. She took her cue to leave when Jace just kept up his cleaning, he supposed, and despite the silence she left behind, he was glad._

Alone _. At last._

* * *

"Is this really the only way?"

In the past – at some point before the war, before she'd got fully absorbed into their world, before it had managed to reach her to the core – Clary would have been upset. Jace was almost proud of the fact that he couldn't hear that in her voice now. There was just sadness and resignation and the distant hint of anger. She wouldn't try to stop him, but she wouldn't let him go without a fight either and Jace appreciated the sentiment despite the lack of time they had to work with. The battle raged on around them and the longer the crack remained open, the more demons they would have to face. They had run out of options faster than he had imagined.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't." It was only half a lie. It _was_ the only way, but Jace hadn't even hesitated before offering himself for the task. There was no one who could stop him – not on a local level, at least – and he was ready to take full advantage of that. "Someone needs to do it; who if not me? Do you remember when you thought that Valentine would use you to activate the Sword?" he asked at the sight of her expression. "You asked me to promise you that I would kill you if it came to that because you couldn't bear to think of what would happen otherwise."

"That was _years_ ago," Clary protested, but there was no heat in the words; her weariness replaced by acceptance. "This isn't the same; anyone could do it. All these people—"

"They're _my_ people now," Jace cut her off. They _really_ didn't have time for this – not just because of the greater demon that strained the edges of their realm in the gaping pit right in front of them, but because he had wanted to do this while Isabelle was still busy with her own fight. Clary he could handle, but the last thing he wanted was to see Isabelle's face as she realised that he'd done this deliberately. Necessity or now, it still felt like a betrayal to leave her to her own devices, but what choice did he have? Just one more month – one more _day_ –of all of this would drive him mad, and that wasn't the way he wanted to go. "It's my job to keep them safe. It'll be someone else's job soon enough, but in the meantime— keep things under control. And take care of Izzy, _please_. Make sure she stays with you. Don't let her close herself off."

"Of course I won't." Clary was better at holding her tears back now, but he could still see them in her eyes as she responded to the embrace he offered, only letting him go when the sickeningly distinct sound of the demon's claws digging into the surface under their feet. "Are you sure you know what to do?"

"As sure as I'm going to get." The demon – the one who had been sending all of its children all around the city for months now – had only one weak spot and it was still too far away for any weapon to reach. They couldn't afford to let it get any closer – it was the first thing that Jace had made sure of – and one of them getting closer to it instead had quickly become the only obvious way to deal with it.

Jace turned towards his target now, clutching the spear in his hand – one with a tip made of adamas, requested specifically for this occasion – even harder. They had said their goodbyes already; there was nothing else he could say to Clary that wouldn't make this even harder on both of them.

He smiled in spite of himself as he felt an already familiar weight land on his shoulder. He had never told anyone about what the raven meant to him – about the reasons it had stayed by his side ever since Alec's death – but they had been inseparable all the same. It was a secret he had preferred to keep to himself until the very end for far too many reasons to count, so that was what he did even now while he prepared for the attack as well as he could.

If he missed— if he missed, he would end up in whatever hell dimension the demon had crawled out of. Somehow he knew that Alec would follow him there as well and the thought of that was much more petrifying than the idea of his own fate to the point where Jace resorted to praying again, reaching out to every entity he had tried to never rely on before _. Please, let me save them. Let me save **him**_.

"What do you figure are my chances?" He asked, trying to ignore the quiver in his voice; the overly tight grip on the handle of his spear. _Any moment now_. It wouldn't last long at all. If it really _was_ him that Alec was waiting for, then he wouldn't make him wait much longer. "Think I can make it?"

He got yet another croak in return; one that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and he grinned in return as he braced himself. It wouldn't be all that difficult – the flaw in the creature's armour was big enough for him to see from here – but he would have still preferred to have Alec's skill for finer targets instead of the weapon he had picked.

"I thought you might say that."

Staring down into the darkness swirling under the crumbling ground, Jace spread his arms and took flight.


End file.
